Current web pages utilize a variety of HTML tags from vendors for purposes of ad serving and tracking user behavior. A “tag” is a snippet of code that collects data, targets your ad campaign, tracks ads and performs other functions. An example of an HTML tag is the iFrame container which is used by many ad servers to place ads within web pages. Many other tags exist and each has a specific purpose (e.g., digital marketing, display remarking, web page analysis). A vendor may support various different “tag types,” such as the page view tag, product view tag, order tag, etc. Each tag may be associated with one or more parameters, whose values are needed to be resolved at runtime (when the web page is loading) prior to syndicating (i.e., making available) the tag data, such as to the vendor's server. These values may be obtained from various elements (e.g., DOM elements, JavaScript elements, URL parameters, cookies) on the web page.
While HTML tags are necessary for many of today's websites, especially e-commerce sites, the main disadvantage of such tags is the requirement that all of the values of the tag parameters be resolved (obtained and validated) prior to syndicating the tag data, such as to the vendor's server. Some of these parameter values may not be immediately available, and as a result, such values may be looked up repeatedly in an attempt to resolve the parameter values thereby slowing page load times. Furthermore, the value of parameters, such as the parameters of JavaScript tags, may be obtained using the eval( ) function to obtain the value of the parameters. If there are a lot of parameters to be resolved, then there may be many eval( ) function calls leading to slower page load loads. Such slow page load times frustrate end users and lead to higher web page abandonment rates and thus potentially lower revenue for web page publishers.
As a result, there is not currently a means for efficiently resolving the values for the tag parameters thereby syndicating the tag data as early as possible even before the web page is completely loaded.